ALT on Jennifer Hudson’s Met fitting at Vera Wang

All over Manhattan, it’s a bit like Hollywood just before the Oscars. Design houses are hives of fittings and attention to last-minute details in preparation for tonight’s Costume Institute Gala honoring the late Alexander McQueen’s couture genius, and nowhere more evident than at Vera Wang. Just off the plane from Brazil, where she was touring for her new album, I Remember Me,Jennifer Hudson rushed into her noon fitting there on Saturday, and she knew her first choice was the right one—a smoke satin organza strapless deftly draped over an underskirt with handmade Lemarié ivory tulle rosettes—perfect to show off her new Weight Watchers silhouette. “I love it so much, I don’t want to take it off,” she said. With a small entourage of two P.A.s and one security guard, Hudson, who first wore a custom Wang dress in 2007, when she won her Golden Globe for Dreamgirls, seemed right back at home.

But it’s a new day for the diva in the making, who, through both good and difficult times, has evolved into a lighter JH mentally, spiritually, and physically. What helps is the solid-gold relationship she has with David Otunga and their son, David Daniel Otunga, Jr., almost two.

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Photo: Courtesy of Michael Kors

Hudson will walk the red carpet at the Metropolitan Museum of Art with the designer, who had just come off a six-hour stint at CNN the day before as a commentator on the royal nuptials. Wang’s new fragrance, Lovestruck, was launched last Thursday, and last night, she hosted a screening with director Pierre Thoretton for his film L’Amour Fou at MoMA’s Celeste Bartos Theater, as well as a post-screening buffet dinner at her home. The critically acclaimed film, part of the Tribeca Film Festival’s lineup, documents Pierre Bergé’s love for Yves Saint Laurent through the prism of the auction of their art collection in 2009.

Working in her uniform of gray cashmere T-shirt, black leggings, and Marni clogs, Wang pulled in the dress’s torso to make it as tight as possible—Hudson loves an hourglass silhouette. Wang also showed me what Samantha Boardman would be wearing: a strapless dress of umbria tulle with a full bombast skirt. “It’s so Madame Grès,” Wang was telling Boardman over her BlackBerry phone. Her ateliers have been working overtime, putting the finishing touches on her own citron vert silk crepe-de-Chine pleated column, as well as on alternatives, like a black frigate of draped tulle and one in cappuccino with black shoulder straps. “I will decide at the last minute,” she said, “according to the weather.”